


Illegal Representation, or: That Time Arthur's Client Was Guilty And His Life Went To Shit

by rapacityinblue



Series: Inception Lawyer AU [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 18:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rapacityinblue/pseuds/rapacityinblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU; Arthur is a lawyer. Eames is his client. They live in Chicago, because that's where all Lawyer!Fic should take place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illegal Representation, or: That Time Arthur's Client Was Guilty And His Life Went To Shit

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading! I really appreciate it.
> 
> All Chigao geography and law is as close to accurate as I can make it, which is pretty dang accurate. But don't expect it to hold up in court. Also, beware a brief cameo from The Good Wife.

“I just think that If we're doing this, we need to make some things absolutely clear," Arthur says, and he lays out a yellow legal pad on the table before Eames--aka Chuck Dickens, Frankie Bacon, and Jim Dean (although really Arthur thinks he's flattering himself with that last one). On that yellow legal pad there is a Venn Diagram, a fucking Venn Diagram, with two circles that do not overlap at all. One says ‘Things I should tell my lawyer,’ and the other says ‘Things I should absolutely not, under no circumstances, ever tell my lawyer.’ ‘No’ is underlined. ‘Ever’ is underlined thrice.

Under ‘things I shouldn't tell my lawyer,’ (Eames summarizes for the sake of brevity) Arthur has packed the circle full of more typography, and Eames reads ‘State and/or law enforcement officials I have bribed,’ ‘Aliases the police haven't found,’ (he was proud of Jim Dean, ok? Americans thought he was a sausage tycoon) and he has to turn his head almost 45 degrees down to read ‘Tales of sexual prowess,’ where prowess has been crossed out to read "malfeasance". ‘Embarrassing’ has been carrot marked in front of that one.

Under ‘things I should tell my lawyer,’ Arthur has written ‘That I am innocent,’ ‘Plea bargains I am willing to accept,’ and ‘Apologies for my naturally crass and under-evolved personality.’  
"It's a bit wordy, isn't it? When you say embarrassing stories do you mean embarrassing for you or me?" Eames says, which he thinks is much better than his initial reaction (“My personality is not under-evolved!') “Is this because you go out drinking with the State's Attorney?" Eames asks.

“This is because there is such a thing as legal malpractice, and if you tell me you have sixteen Sorensons tucked away in a warehouse on Canal and with a seventeenth on the way, I have to tell the ASA and that's another seventeen charges I can't get dismissed, Mr. Eames."

"I though we had, you know, whatsit. Lawyer client confidentiality."

"Privilege," Arthur grits out. "And not if I have reason to believe you are going to commit a crime."

"I still think this is about the States Attorney thing. That’s a conflict. Maybe I should fire you."

Arthur grits his teeth again and says, "You can't fire me."

"Can so, I know my rights!" Eames replies, and Arthur reminds himself that third year associates on partnership tracks in prestigious law firms do not punch their clients. Or stomp on the toes of their Ferragamos. And how does a man with $800 shoes have such awful taste in clothes?

“Your rights entitle you to representation through your embassy. Which you refused,” Arthur says.

“They just wanted to clear me of charges so they could deport me. Whereas you, darling, are going to get me off.”

“Right,” Arthur says absently, adding ‘existence of all or any fake passports/other identification’ under the heading of ‘things I will not tell my lawyer’. Then he reviews what Eames had actually said and his cheeks go rather pink. “No. I mean no.”

The worst part of it is that Eames is laughing at him.

* * *

Arthur really does drink with the State’s Attorney. Or rather, he goes out drinking with the Dom and his ASAs, because he has history with them. And it’s not a conflict, because they have very strict rules that they Don’t Discuss Work, especially any cases pending where the SA’s office is involved.

Like most rules, these are broken by the second beer and completely thrown out the window by the fourth.

“You pulled the Forger case, right?” Ariadne swirls her Blue Moon in the bottom of the bottle, watching the carbon dioxide bubble to the surface.

“Your beer’s going flat,” he responds instead, because that’s easier.

“I bet you did, because everyone knows it went to Fischer, which means it went to you, since you pull all the billable hours at Fischer and the guy was arraigned in $800.00 shoes. That’s billable.”

“Well, they won’t let him wear Ferragamo in county,” he says without thinking, and Ariadne gives a ‘hah!’ of victory and takes a swig of her beer.

“So what’s he like?” she asks. “I heard he pulled Yale for a judge. Did he really flirt with her?”

“He flirts with everyone,” Arthur says, and gets another ‘hah!’ for his troubles.

“Including you?” Ari asks, kicking him under the bar, and he glares at her. She gives him a grin sparkling with youth and innocence and a bunch of other stuff he knows is bullshit. “Come on! We all know he chose Fischer, Fischer, Browning, and Saito because of their international presence.” That makes Arthur snort into his glass, because he knows that Mr. Saito is said international presence. Ari knows it too, because she continues, “And we all know Fischer, Fischer, and Browning only added Saito so they could show how diverse they were, with their Asian named partner,” and he snorts again. He really needs to stop encouraging her, because she still isn’t done. “And we all know that Fischer has only the most handsome third year associates,” which makes Arthur choke on a swallow of Guinness. Ari grins and says, “I bet that’s why he chose you.”

“Ariadne,” Arthur says, “It’s the weekend. Which is a concept I know you don’t understand, since you don’t do any work to begin with, but I would really like to discuss something else.” It’s Friday. His day of rest. He’s got a beer or six in his near future, his suit jacket is slung over the back of his chair, his cuffs rolled up to his elbows for God’s sake. And tomorrow, he knows, he has a stack of case law research higher than his head to review, a million briefs to write, and an infinite number of trial notes to review. He would really like to discuss something else.

Apparently, Ariadne understands, because she does change the subject, to one that is not at all better. “Okay. When are you coming to work for us?”

It’s an old argument, one that is almost more comforting than irritating. “Never,” he tells her, finishing off his next beer.

“Come on,” she urges. “We’d be more fun than working for those schmucks.”

“I like those shmucks. They keep me in very nice suits.”

“That’s another thing!” she cheers, reaching out to pluck at his waistcoat. “You won’t have to wear this nonsense.”

“Hey!” Arthur twists to look down at himself. “What’s wrong with a three piece suit?”

“It makes you look like that, for one thing,” a new voice joins the combination.

Say what you will about Dominic Cobb; he’s a man who knows how to fill a room. Most men, after new evidence overturned their murder convictions and reclassified their wife’s death as a suicide, would sue the state of Illinois for every last cent in its shitty economy, and move somewhere with decent weather. Dom had turned his conviction into a successful bid for State’s Attorney. Arthur has a lot of respect for him.

It has nothing to do with the fact that his deceased wife had been Arthur’s best friend in undergrad, really.

“Hi Dom,” he buries his nose in his beer as Ariadne and the State’s Attorney said their hellos in a way that involved a lot more saliva than Arthur is really comfortable with.  
“Knock it off, you two.”

“Okay,” Dom says, grinning, “but it’s going to cost you the next round, and you have to tell me about the Forger.”

Of course, he thinks, whether or not Dom pushed his wife off the roof of that hotel, he’s still a bastard.

* * *

“What is this?” Arthur stares down at the legal pad, which is covered in circles and calligraphy. on the top of one circle is his own name. On top of the other is Mr. Eames’s. The circles have a very large overlap, in which Eames has written ‘sex’. And surrounded it with stars.

Arthur stares down at the evil yellow paper, and all he can think of to say is, “You misspelled 'harassment.'"

"Did I?" Eames's eyebrows go up and he leans forward with exaggerated interest. Arthur leans back to maintain his personal space.

"And also 'bondage'."

"You're making that one up!" Eames says, and Arthur keeps his face disinterested and just _points._

“Mr. Eames,” he says finally, when the other man leans back. “Please tell me that you called me here for something other than an illegal act which you can not, in fact, spell,”

“I did!” Eames looks bright and happy again as he settles back, his fingers linked behind his head. “I want you to get me out of here! I’m being held illegally!”

“What?” The man shifts gears so fast Arthur feels like he’s in an entirely different car watching Eames pulling ahead of him. He pulls his mind back to the actual statements being made, and precisely how ridiculous they are. “You aren’t being held illegally!”

“I am,” Eames insists. “I looked it up. I haven’t been charged with anything in almost a week. Almost a _week_ , Arthur! It’s against your bloody constitution!”

Arthur pinches his nose. “Which applies to United States Citizens, Mr. Eames. You aren’t one.”

“Oh.” Such a simple thing, but the man looks completely flummoxed, as if he forgot to take it into consideration. He probably did forget to take it into consideration, and for a moment he looks completely -- sad. Just sad, like he thought he had the answer and now he’s realized he was asking the wrong question the whole time. Arthur sighs.

“Look, I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “We’ll have you out by the weekend.” Sure, Eames _isn’t_ a citizen and under wonderful US law he barely has any rights at all. Sure, he’s essentially the definition of flight risk, and if he runs for his embassy or even the airport there’s not a whole lot they can do, but he had his chance and he hasn’t yet. And he looks like a kicked puppy. So Arthur, hating himself more and more with every minute, hating himself even _more_ for saying it, can’t stop the words from slipping out, and damn if Eames doesn’t brighten up again. He’s puppies and Christmas and everything Arthur works 90 hours a week to avoid.

“Excellent! They’re transporting a Frieseke to the Art Institute on Thursday. _Girl at a Piano._ It’s always easier to boost in transit.”

Arthur let his head drop against the table.

“I know. Frieseke. He’s not Renoir or Monet, but what can I say? I’m partial. And he’s local, did you know that? Studied at your very own Institute.”

“Eames,” Arthur said. “Please, please, please tell me I do not have to ask the Art Institute to fluoresce their Picassos.”

“Arthur, please,” Eames said, and Arthur tried to ignore the way Eames’s tongue wrapped around his the consonants in his name. “I collect _impressionists_ ,” and Arthur lifts his forehead enough to drop it back down with a heavy thud. “Don’t forget my release!” Eames shouts after him as he leaves, and Arthur can’t help it; he turns and shouts back,

“You misspelled ‘sodomy’! And used it incorrectly, in context.”

It’s not until he gets home that he stops to wonder why he brought the evil yellow paper back with him.

  


* * *

Eames’s petition for release means new case law to review, all new research if he’s going before a judge, and he loses himself in it for two days. When Ariadne calls on Wednesday to ask if he’ll meet her at the bar, he thinks maybe he lost track of the days, but it isn’t Friday already.

Arthur doesn’t like going out on work nights, but he knows she wouldn’t call him unless it was important, so he goes.

It’s not just Ariadne waiting for him in the bar; Dom is there too, and they’re sitting at a high table in one of the darker corners. He grabs a beer from the bar before coming over to join them.

“Am I in trouble with mom and dad?” he asks lightly, his eyes flicking back and forth between them with very real worry in his face. Ariadne gives him a grin.

“We wanted to talk to you first. I mean, before you hear from somewhere else.”

Hear what from who, he wonders, but Arthur has never in his life been impatient, so he sips from his glass, his lips melting away the frost in their own impression.

“You’ve been our friend for a long time,” Dom says, but he’s looking at Ariadne as though they’re having an entire second conversation telepathically that Arthur is not a part of. “And this is probably going to go public pretty fast, so we wanted to tell you first --”

Ariadne has a lot less patience for circumlocution than her boyfriend, and she cuts in, “We’re getting married!” She reaches into her shirt and pulls out the ring, which she’s wearing strung on a chain.

For a moment Arthur is completely shocked, speechless, in a way he hasn’t been for a very long time. He stops to wonder _why._ He knew Ari and Dom were serious. He’d introduced them. He’d squared with this when they started dating, and he didn’t care that Dom was moving on. It's been almost four years since Mal died. It's good for him.

But sitting across from them, nursing his beer, Arthur feels angry. He knows it wouldn’t show on his face, or on the careful way he holds his glass, but he’s angry at Mal for killing herself, and at Dom for moving on, at Ariadne for letting him.

And, come to think of it, he’s mad at Eames for complicating his life and burying him in research and making him google _Girl at a Piano_ and he’s mad that he likes it. He looks at the table and takes a careful swallow of beer, feeling it fizz as it settled into his stomach. All he says is, “I’m really happy for both of you. Congratulations.”

Ariadne grins at Dom as she drops the ring back under the collar of her shirt. “Thanks,” she says.

“So.” Dom is grinning too, resting his elbows on the table as he leans forward. “About that job.”

Arthur realizes where this is going then, both hands wrapped tightly around the base of his pint. “You’re leaving,” he says to Ari. It’s not really a question; they don’t have many options here.

“Officially we were never together, you know?” She smiles. “So on Monday I’m transferring to the public defenders, and we’ll start letting people know sometime the week after.”

He nods, numbly. “Switching sides?”

“Hey, I bet more of my clients are innocent than yours!” she laughs, and Arthur joins in, a little bitter.

“Before trial, sure. After, it’s a whole different story.”

“Arthur, are you okay?” Ariadne’s pretty face is bunched with concern.

Dom says, “So we have an opening--”

But Arthur shakes his head and just says, “No thanks. I’m happy where I am.”

“At Fischer?” Ariadne asks it, but neither of them looks like they believe him, which is fine. They don’t have to believe him, they just have to listen to what he’s saying.

“Yeah, at Fischer,” he says, and he can’t even pretend it sounds convincing, so he stands, the beer half finished. “I’ve still got a lot to put in order and I’m in court tomorrow. I’ve gotta go.”

“Stay just a little longer,” Ari says, looking up with him. “Come on, we’ll buy you a round. I still want to hear about the Forger.”

“Sorry. You know I can’t talk about a case that’s going to trial,” he says finally, and gives each of them a tight lipped smile. “Hey, Dom, don’t let this one go, okay? I don’t think they give third chances.”

He tells himself it’s not that mean to say, because he introduced them for crying out loud, and obviously no one would take him seriously, which is why he’s very careful not to look at Ari’s face as he walks away from the table. And it’s totally not fair, but the dominant thought in his mind while he climbs up to the platform and waits for the red line is _I miss Mal._

* * *

He really does have court the next day, and that thought, more than anything, is what levers him out of bed when his alarm rings in the morning. He’s torn between lying in bed all day, wallowing in self pity, and writing a formal letter of apology to Ariadne and Dom, complete with flowery pledges of eternal fealty and please for forgiveness, which he realizes is exactly the sort of thing Eames would do. What he actually does is swing his legs over the edge of the bed and push himself into a sitting position, stumbling first to the shower, then to Starbucks, and then to the business of getting Eames out of jail to steal whatever priceless work of art is crossing the country by truck today.

The ASA on Eames’s case, thankfully, isn’t anyone he’s close to -- Agos? Argos? Ergot? Something like that -- a holdover from the last SA who Dom’s kept around the office. He doesn’t seem to care much about whether Eames is released on bail or not, which is a nice change of pace, though Arthur imagines he has a caseload full of murderers and rapists who he’d much rather see taking up County cell space. Eames’s passport is secured (and it occurs to Arthur that it’s, well, _cute_ that they think _that’s_ a surety) and an obscenely large check is written out, and Agos-maybe-Argos grabs him by the cuff on their way out and says, “Listen, I know this is big hours for you, but it’s a waste of my time, so I will buy you coffee if you come discuss plea deals with me right now.”

Since he can bill it, and he’s amused, and he doesn’t want to face anyone else from the SA’s office, Arthur says yes, and that’s how he and Agos (whose first name is actually Cary) end up in Starbucks, where it turns out that Cary is just like him. From the way he left a major litigation firm for the slightly stale glory of the SA’s office to their appreciation of the menswear they can’t afford. They spend about forty-five minutes on the new Kenneth Cole line, and about ten on Eames.

“If he were going to flee back to England, he would have by now,” Cary says, which Arthur doesn’t disagree with since it’s more or less his thought as well. But it’s cute how Cary thinks Eames will accept a plea when the SA doesn’t even seem sure what they’re charging him with, yet.

“I realize we’re in something of a gray area, here,” Arthur says, because they are. Between Eames’s citizenship and the inherent difficulties surrounding proving -- and prosecuting -- art forgery, it seems as if the SA’s best option right now is to string Eames along while they throw their legal spaghetti at the wall.

“Even if he cops to making the paintings,” Arthur says, very carefully avoiding any words like ‘forgery,’ or ‘theft,’ “There’s no crime there unless you can prove he intended to use them to defraud an individual or institution. There’s no copyright on Monet. You can’t prove infringement. Maybe he made the paintings for his own enjoyment.”

The idea of a man forging a Monet so perfectly that collectors would mistake it for original doing so for his own enjoyment -- well, it’s the sort of thing juries laugh outright at. But still, without any crime, what does the SA expect to pin Eames with? Arthur’s feeling fairly confident about a judge dismissing it from day one, really, if the People can’t meet their burden of proof.

But Cary only shrugs, and says, “Look, we’ve got him in violation of his visa, just because of the fake IDs he was picked up with. We can just ship him back to Britain if we have to, and the only reason we haven’t is because we’re going to find something on him. If I have to go over every painting in the Art Institute myself until I find something that sticks, I am going to, because I know there’s something there to find. But that’s a waste of the taxpayer’s money. So let’s just plead him out now, huh?” And Arthur’s good mood goes away.

Cary’s idea of a “deal” is so bad it’s good, and Arthur’s obligated to bring it to Eames anyway, so at least he’ll get a laugh from it. Still, he goes back to the office with the storm clouds gathering over his head.

* * *

He calls Dom’s office line, but isn’t surprised when a familiar female voice answers. He checks his watch just to be sure, but he already knows it must be roughly lunch time, if she’s there.

“Hi,” he says, after she says, ‘State’s Attorney’s Office.’ There’s a long pause, and then Ariadne says,

“Are you done being a jerk?” There’s no judgement in her tone. It’s just a simple question, information she needs to move forward.

“Yeah,” he says, into the expectant silence, and then after a moment he says. “No. Probably not. But I’m trying, here.”

“Okay.” There’s a smile in her voice. “You gonna tell Dom that too?”

“I didn’t call his office to talk to you,” Arthur points out dryly.

“Sure you did, I’m a much better conversationalist. And I’m pretty.”

He lets it go with a soft laugh, and says, “He’s not there, is he?”

“Nah. Caught me.” He hears her stuffing lettuce into her mouth, crunching what’s left of her salad. “Just...” she hesitates, her uncertainty clear in her voice. “Call him, okay? You’re his best friend.”

Arthur paused, is eyebrows going up. He was Dominic’s best friend? He’d been Mal’s best friend, and Ariadne’s after Mal’s death, and all along Dom had just been there. In his life, but not really a part of it -- at least from his perspective. Arthur’s stomach clutches around itself as he wonders, for the first time, how it looked from the point of view of the man whose wife had just killed herself. “I said I’d call, Ari,” is all he really can say, followed by a polite goodbye as his fingers skim over the keypad of his cellphone.

* * *

“Darling!”

Eames is entirely too cheerful to see him, _always,_ taking up most of the cell with his elbows sticking out and his knees spread apart and that bright orange jumpsuit which (Arthur knows from his appearances in court) is only marginally preferable to _what he actually wears._ Today, Arthur’s just not in the mood, and he gives Eames his tightest, thinnest-lip smile as he drops into a chair.

He thinks he sees a flicker of uncertainty pass over the other man’s face, but it’s gone in a heartbeat if it was ever there, so there’s no reason for Arthur to think about it or worse, God, try to _analyze_ it, and he only came here for one reason anyway, so he puts a folder on the table. It’s Eames’s file, everything his lawfirm has, everything he’s been working on obsessively since he stood in the younger Fischer’s sun filled office and took a messy stack of briefs and Robert said to him, “Take point on this one, would you?”

“You should be processed and out of here by Friday afternoon,” he tells Eames, and his own voice sounds toneless to him, a little hollow, but that’s probably just the cavernous cement walls. Eames can’t take up all the space, after all, and he’s aiming his voice at a spot just past Eames’s shoulder because he can’t look at him right now. He can’t think about the case right now, because he can’t think about anything other than Dom, and Ariadne, and Mal, and the anger is still there swirling with all the other feelings. Fuck. He hates feelings.

Eames is grinning like Arthur just gave him the best news in the world; like it won’t be a few months at most before he has to be in court every day, like he won’t have to wear a _thing_ on his ankle like an _invisible fucking fence._ “I didn’t think it would actually work!” he tells Arthur, but Arthur hears, ‘I didn’t think you’d actually do this for me.’

“I came by to tell you,” Arthur says, and, on impulse, adds, “And to give you this.”

The folder is heavy enough that it mostly supports its own weight, only sagging a little at the far corners as Arthur holds it across the table. Eames’s face goes from ecstasy to something else, something that could be confusion. What the fuck does Arthur know? “What is that?” Eames asks.

“It’s you. Your case,” Arthur says, and when Eames doesn’t appear any more enlightened, he says, “I quit.” Which is true. He realizes, in that moment, that it’s entirely true, and his reasons for bringing the folder are suddenly clear as fucking glass. Because Saito may have been invited in as a partner because of his international practice, but fuck it, he’s really there because he had the best international practice of all the lawyers whose name would shout how diverse the firm was. Because he’s tired of spending his weekends up to the elbows in research and still not have enough on Mondays. Because he knows that being an associate is mostly legal scut work, but he could be doing it for a partner who had the decency to meet his eyes, not just drop a stack of paperwork on him for a client who hasn’t even been charged and whose citizenship is in question and for whom there’s no fucking precedent, anyway. Because he doesn’t know when the high point of his life became Friday night drinks with a man he didn’t even realize was his friend. “I’m moving to the SA’s office. It hasn’t hit the papers yet, but they’re going to have an opening, and I think --” he hopes “--I have a shot at it.” He’ll send his resume to Dom tonight, at least, and if the man is going to hire him, then he will. If not, it’s not like Arthur’s unemployable.

He still can’t entirely believe that he’s giving up a shot at six figures a year, plus benefits, plus a bonus package, and probably a goddamn club membership if he asked for it, to do the same job on a public servant’s salary, but there you have it. Maybe it’s time he had a little chaos in his life. Maybe Eames, with his fucking ugly orange jump suit, taught him that.

“Switching sides on me?” Eames asks easily, in a voice that no way betrays how he knows, how they both know, that Eames didn't choose the firm. He chose Arthur.

There’s a strange sort of calm settling over him. “Don’t worry, I can’t discuss your case with anyone still. Even if I’m not your lawyer, privilege is maintained. The SA will do this thing called a Chinese Wall, and if you can get past how horribly racist that sounds it means I won’t even be able to sit in a room with anyone working your case until it’s over.”

Eames doesn’t look reassured, which shouldn’t bother Arthur as much as it does. He takes the folder from him mutely, which is fuck, just weird, because it’s _Eames_ , and the man has been sexually harassing him since he walked in the door on day one. He’s expecting a crack about making sure Arthur isn’t able to sit, or something, but he’s just silent.

“Okay,” Arthur says, standing uncertainly. “I’m gonna go.”

“Wait,” Eames says finally, flipping through the folder Arthur gave him, his eyes distant. “There’s one more thing, if I can impose upon you with an unrelated issue.”

Arthur stops at the doorway, raising one eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Whoever I hire isn’t likely to be anywhere near as good, darling,” Eames says, and that’s _true,_ so Arthur can’t really find it in him to protest. “Which means at best the most I can hope for is probably a polite request to leave the country. When that happens, the remarkable stance your country has toward property law and all, could you see to the transfer of a few personal items for me?” He bends to write something on a sheet of scrap, creases it neatly, and hands it to Arthur. He opens it to see the address for a storage unit, and Eames says, “There are some pieces in there that need to be shipped climate control, but only a few. The later ones you may as well just sell and wire me the proceeds. Go in with the lot and an auction house will take it all, even the less valuable pieces.”

The anger coursing through Arthur, hot and sudden, is the most emotion he’s felt in what feels like days. “If you think,” he says sharply, “that as your lawyer or anything else, I would allow you to drag me into the transport of stolen goods-- for a _known_ criminal--!”

“Innocent until proven guilty, wasn’t it?” Eames says, his tone deceptively light, and now Arthur is almost sure that whatever is in Eames’s eyes, it’s not confusion. It’s hurt. Like he’s the puppy Arthur is abandoning, which is just ridiculous. The man has the money to take his business to any firm he wants. He can even stay at Fischer, Fischer, Browning, and Saito, if diversity means that much to him. “They were all legally purchased, Arthur, and I’ll be happy to put the paperwork in order for you.”

“Okay,” he says finally. He’s not sure why he’s agreeing. He knows he should refuse, because the man is a _forger_ , he can print up a bill of sale on any public access computer, but instead Arthur slips the piece of paper into his pocket.

“I looked up that rule, you know,” Eames said, examining his nails. A few weeks of prison life had them scraped clean around the cuticles. When he’d come in, they’d been caked with paint and ink. “You aren’t required to report what I tell you unless you believe I’m going to maim someone. If you think I’m going to commit a crime, it’s at your own discretion.”

“Some of us are honest people by nature, Mr. Eames,” he says.

“Ah, right. That’s what led you to the practice of law, isn’t it?” his (former, he reminds himself, former) client says with only a hint of a sneer layered into his accent.

They stand like that for a long, heavy moment, and even the guard in the corner is looking distinctly uncomfortable, like he walked into a lover’s quarrel or something, which is just ridiculous.  
“Well,” Eames says finally, “I imagine if you had told them all your worst fears about my magnificent plans, they wouldn’t be letting me leave, so obviously you didn’t. That’s practically a vote of confidence, Arthur, isn’t it?” Arthur only shrugs a little, and Eames may smile a little back as he says, “Enjoy the SA’s office.”

He leaves his letter of resignation on Robert’s desk and he knows he should spend the rest of his afternoon handing off his other cases, but he spends it emptying desk drawers instead.

* * *

He promised Ariadne he’d call, and he does, after he’d couriered over a cover letter and his resume.

“Arthur, what the fuck is this? Are you crazy? You know what I’m going to pay you, right?” Dom says when he picks up the phone.

“Look,” Arthur says, “Don’t read too much into this, it’s just, you know, a feeler. Also, I’m sort of an idiot.”

“Right, but you’re a very well paid idiot,” Dom says.

“Was. I was a very well paid idiot,” and fuck if it doesn’t feel like he’s flying to say so, and now he’s outright grinning, which is fine, because Dom can’t see him over the phone, so there will be no humiliating mockery for the rest of his life.

Dom grumbles about how he depends on Arthur’s salary to pick up the Friday night tab, which they both know is bullshit, and Arthur grumbles about how he’s supposed to make rent on what Dom calls a salary, and they keep grumbling until Ariadne picks up the second line and starts coughing very pointedly about dinner reservations and the possible ramifications of monopolizing her fiancee, and Arthur realizes that for the first time since undergrad he feels like he can _go home early._

So he does.

* * *

Eames becomes a line item in the Monday edition of the Tribune, because he made some sort of deal, the exact specifics of which are being kept tightly under wraps, and will be leaving the country. Arthur stares at his paper for a good fifteen minutes, coffee in one hand, as if through sheer concentration he can will more information out of the page. He can’t believe Eames went with that embassy hack Nash, of all the people to replace him, but it’s not his problem anymore and it’s not like he can do anything about it.

He reads through the News, World, and Business sections every day, but there’s no follow up story.

* * *

There’s a piece of yellow legal pad paper in the pocket of Arthur’s second best Hugo Boss suit. It comes back to him in a zip-locked baggie after it’s been to the dry-cleaners three times, but Eames wrote it with one of those disposable Bic pens, the kind that apparently have indelible ink, so it’s still mostly legible.

Arthur folds it up and tosses it onto his desk, where it can be buried in a sheaf of other notes -- notes about open cases, notes about things that are important and he’s being paid for, but it never seems to vanish the way he wants it to. He finds it at the most inopportune times, usually when he hasn’t had nearly enough coffee, and in his own defense he means to deal with it. How, well, that’s still unclear, but he’s going to do something.

It sits there until he gets a postcard, of the _Arc de Triomphe,_ of all things, which at least answers the question of where Eames went. He tells himself that he can’t feel bad for not dealing with the yellow paper (and, by extension, the warehouse full of possibly stolen priceless artwork) because he didn’t know where Eames was, and he couldn’t just wire money off into the ether. The postcard only says, ‘At the risk of cliche, darling, you have something of mine,’ and under that is an address -- not in France, but in Monaco.

“Can you help me on this?” he finally asks Ariadne, parked in the Starbucks where they can both grab coffee before going to their separate offices for the day. It’s nice, working close enough to see her more than once a week now. (Sharing an office with Dom has convinced him that he could do with a little less of the man in his life, but that’s a different story.)

“Arthur,” she whines, “Do you have any idea what it’s like trying to do a full case load and plan a wedding?”

“What planning? How much of that shit have I done for you?” he says without heat, and she rolls her eyes.

“Oh, I made you eat cake, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

He kicks her under the table, and she kicks him back, and he says, “Please. I just need, like, an hour. I’ll even watch the kids so you and Dom can have a night out for a movie or a dress fitting or something.”

She weighs it for a long time, then says, “I’ll fit something into my schedule.”

“Your children are going to be ugly. They’re going to have huge chins and tiny foreheads,” he tells her. She kicks him again.

  


* * *

It’s worth it to hear her breath get stolen away as they walk into the warehouse. The affect, Arthur has to admit, is pretty breathtaking. After cinderblock wall after cinderblock wall with the same ugly mustard door on either side every four feet, Eames’s unit is like a garden.

It’s not to his taste. There are too many well heeled women, sitting at picnics or dancing the ballet, too often with small boys dressed as girls behind them. There are maybe half a dozen garden landscapes, one of which Arthur is absolutely sure is a real Monet, and, standing out like a sore thumb in all that color, a steel-gray Whistler. Arthur likes the next decade, with its harsher lines and abstract images and the scars of two world wars, but these are nice.

“Nice is the understatement of the fucking decade,” Ariadne says when he voices that opinion, running her finger reverently along the edge of one of the canvases.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to touch them,” he says in lieu of anything else.

“It’s him, isn’t it? The Forger case? What happened? Even Dom won’t tell me.”

“I don’t know. I was off the case by then,” he says, which is mostly true. “It looked like you were really struggling to find anything to charge him with, even, but someone must have come through because he took that deal. I’m supposed to ship these to Monaco.”

Ariadne’s eyes are wide. “You realize that there is more here in artwork than we will probably ever make in our entire life,” she says, which is totally unnecessary and also very true.

He says, a little too sharply, “They’re my client’s property, Ariadne, this is a business transaction.”

“It’s still... I mean... wow,” she says, and he laughs a little because exactly. Wow.

It’s like he has his own little museum, an artwork garden, tucked away in a self storage unit in the South Loop, and it’s not that he wants to keep the paintings. He just wants to keep the knowledge of it. He feels like a preschooler with the world’s best secret.

  


* * *

epilogue

His life settles into a routine which is more less what his life is supposed to do. It’s a comforting cycle of Starbucks, court, obnoxiously large books, and not enough sleep. Which is why he things he’s mostly dreaming when Eames shows up at his door at 2 AM, and he’s not sure which is sadder: that Eames is ringing his doorbell after midnight, or that he is awake to answer the door.

“Arthur!”

Eames’s voice rings out with the same easy drawl that always seems like it’s giving Arthur’s name a cuddle, and he gathers enough of his senses to take the man by the collar and haul him inside before any of his neighbors wake up. His “efficiency” apartment (which is just a nice way of saying “crap”, since apparently there’s a square footage necessary to count as a studio and his doesn’t make the cut) is crammed in with another on every side, and he’s seen the passive-aggressive notes their landlady leaves in the elevator about community living and neighborly respect every time someone makes a noise complaint. So far, none have been directed at him, and he wants to keep it that way. His landlady is very small, can’t work her cell phone, talks a mile a minute in about six separate languages, and she is the only person on earth Arthur is afraid of.

“Well, that’s quite the hello,” Eames says cheerfully, and Arthur realizes they’re standing chest to chest, so he lets go and steps back.

Questions flood his mind. Foremost among them are, ‘what are you doing here,’ ‘why are you in the States,’ and ‘who wears that shade of pink voluntarily?’, but the most he manages on any of them is a vague, half-swallowed sort of mumble and a wave of his hands. Eames beams at him like it’s Romantic poetry.

“I’ll have you know I stopped by my storage unit first,” Eames says, “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t run off with my collection.” He looks around Arthur’s apartment and says, “Christ, now I wish you had. This is just sad.”

“You’re not allowed to be here,” Arthur says, which seems more to the point than the fact that he doesn’t even have a stove. “You’re not allowed to be in this country. On this continent, maybe.”

Eames gives a fluid shrug, and Arthur hates the way his muscles bunch and release under that really awful fabric. “It seems that my legal counsel never exercised his right to disclose information on some of my aliases. The customs agents are really depressingly uncreative at O’Hare, did you know that?” and again all Arthur can manage is a sort of strangled ‘hurk!’ “I always knew you liked me better than you said! Anyway, you obviously weren’t going to go about sending me my things, which is really depressing, Arthur, I _paid_ you for that, so I came to see about expediting the process, as it were. Also, it turns out in Monte Carlo is bloody boring after a while, what with having no income tax, and no unemployment, and a ridiculously high literacy rate, remarkable weather and being, essentially, paradise.”

“Eames,” Arthur says, finally feeling enough in control of his faculties to put together a cogent sentence, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Eames looks around his apartment before saying, “Well, I was moving in with you, but I thought you lived in something more than what most of southern Africa would call a hovel. So right now, I’m getting a suite at the Wit.” His grin shows too many teeth, which aren’t even that nice, and you’d think someone who owned a Monet could afford a dentist, but whatever, most of the time his teeth were covered by those lips, so Arthur decides it’s pretty much okay if Eames is looking at him like that. Eames says, “We can figure out the rest as we go.”

Which is absolutely absurd, this entire thing is absurd, and Eames must spend a fortune on lip balm which is probably why he can’t afford a dentist or another Monet, and suddenly Arthur is very much wondering (for what he tells himself is the first time) what it would be like if the other man kissed him. Which, upon reflection, is what he blames (along with it being 2 AM and his not having slept) for saying the first thing that comes out of his mouth. Which, as it happens, is, “I need a date to a wedding.”

It has absolutely nothing to do with cleaning out Eames’s storage locker, but it all seems to work anyway.


End file.
